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I read Mr Blade Nzimande’shigher education 2015 strategy 3 weeks ago and I was impressed by the clarity of purpose and level of commitment demonstrated. What’s more, there is a definite skew towards measurability of KPI’s. What caught my eye was the department’s clear intention to actively influence the choice of post-Matric studies towards vocational qualifications in line with identified scarce and critical skills.

There is a positive sign that the government of the day is committed to increasing numbers of matriculants who want to study further through broadening of access to financial assistance on one hand, and improving the link between higher education output and the job market input on another. As an indication of this commitment, the Department of Higher Education will be launching a career guidance campaign in the middle of July. The campaign will target higher education prospects from all corners of the country, but especially from areas where access to career information and counseling is currently a challenge. A call centre manned by career counselors is going to be set up for regular contact, and roadshows will be undertaken to take career information services to the people that need it most. This sounds like music to my ears, and I fully support this initiative.

As a show of my support, I am going to attend the inaugural launch of the initiative above, titled the Nelson Mandela Career Guidance Campaign, on the 18th of July in Giyani, Limpopo. As the whole world must know by now, the date of launch this aptly titled initiative will be oh Nelson Mandela’s 92nd birthday, and this is befitting given the old man’s passion for social upliftment.

The higher education concept I am working on will complete Mr Nzimande’s career guidance initiative like a hand in a glove.

My country, South Africa, is a place of many interesting contrasts. As an example, we are classified as a 3rd world country, and our Gini Coefficient is amongst the highest in the world. But we are very advanced in areas such as road infrastructure, mining and mobile technology. Fundamental to the reason for the birth of this blog, consider the following facts:

Let me paraphrase the various scenarios above to make the point about the contrastI referred to. On one hand, we are growing a jobless economy. On another hand, we spend a lot on education that does not yield required skills to satisfy industry demand. Let me explore the subject of jobs and education further below.

The country has an acute literacy and numeracy problem, and the government of the day has been trying to address this by spending the largest portion of its budget ($15 billion or 20% in 2009/2010) in the last few years in the key focus area of education, with limited success thus far. The irony of it is that South Africa is rated amongst the highest spenders on education in the developing world, but the government is battling to derive value for its spend.

The main cause of the current dismal situation is unfortunately still the legacy of apartheid, which continues to trouble this country despite 16 years of democracy.

There are several challenges that are difficult to surmount, not least of which is entrenched structural deficiency. A lot has been written on the subject of ineffective education by various esteemed experts such as Professor Haroon Bhorat. I am not an expert in this area by any stretch of the imagination, but it is very relevant to me as an info-preneur.

My specific area of interest is how deficiencies that lead to the disparity between industry demand and supply of required skills can be turned into business opportunities. I am working on an exciting business idea that will be looking to develop a solution to address the mentioned disparity, and I intend to blog on it and other related matters as I go.